Maria Knobelsdorf, University of Dortmund, Germany - Didaktik der ...

InfoSphere with their whole class as part of their school activity,
school students can take part in additional workshops on their
own. For this purpose we frequently offer special workshops
which allow an individual registration. Thus, we can first reach all
students of a class and try to raise an interest in CS topics and
then continue to support especially interested kids.
InfoSphere is integrated into our educational concept for CS
teacher training, which makes up our second target group.
Teacher students register for three consecutive courses in CS
didactics over three semesters. After learning the basics of CS
didactics during the first course, they create an InfoSphere
workshop in groups of two to three students during the second
course. By designing and preparing the learning materials and
then moderating InfoSphere workshops with school students they
gain practical experience about the didactical reduction of CS
topics, didactical design, utilizing different innovative learning
methodologies, and acting in front of a group of school students.
To merge the specialized knowledge of CS at university on the
one hand and the school students’ prior knowledge and skills on
the other hand is a challenging task when designing a workshop.
Especially the different challenges for different age groups are
addressed during the second semester course. The third course in
CS didactics is used to reflect the previous experiences under
consideration of various pedagogical approaches which can be
used to teach CS in school and in the InfoSphere.
In addition to students from school and university, professional
CS teachers are our third target group. The main value of
InfoSphere for this group consists of the extracurricular learning
units to various and novel CS topics. They can visit InfoSphere
with their class to give their students an enthusing insight into CS.
During the workshop the teachers experience their students from a
neutral and observing perspective, which is almost impossible
during regular lessons. Thereby they get to know much about the
students’ learning methods and social skills. Apart from this, the
teachers can download many additional learning materials for use
in their own school lessons from our website 2 for free.
3.2 Basic Conditions
In the following section we present the basic conditions of our
extracurricular learning environment. These specifications
comprise our public relations, the room concept, the available
technologies and the applied learning materials.
Public Relations
We have designed a website 2 , flyers and several posters. We
present InfoSphere at several conferences across Europe and we
regularly exhibit on events such as the science night of RWTH
Aachen University or the local forum for STEM education. In
addition, we present posters and spread out flyers at many
different activities for school students, e.g. the information day at
the RWTH Aachen University, Girl’s day, or go4IT!-workshops.
Our website helps us to get in contact with CS teachers, interested
school students and their parents. On the website you can find
information about all provided workshops. Teachers, parents or
older students can find out what the workshops are about, what
are the target groups, the duration of the workshops and the
expected prior knowledge. Accordingly, they can choose and
register to the best fitting workshop for their classes, their children
2 http://schuelerlabor.informatik.rwth-aachen.de or
http://www.schuelerlabor-informatik.de
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or themselves. Two different monthly newsletters inform school
students and adults about current events. In the download area
especially teachers find a lot of material to enhance their regular
school lessons. For example we provide materials for self-study,
which allows teachers to promote their students’ talent without
neglecting the remaining class.
The equipment of an extracurricular learning environment also
plays an important role for its success; starting with the layout of
the rooms, the technological equipment up to the specifically
designed hands-on materials for the workshops.
Room Concept
The building consists of several separated rooms which are placed
on two different floors. The biggest one holds the “experimental
area” and is located in the center of the building over both floors.
The “teaching room” is located on level 2 and can be used for
microteaching units. The further rooms are a contest area, an
office and storerooms for all materials (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Room concept
The students spend most of the time in the huge experimental
area, which also contains five big tables for six to eight students.
The specific designed furnishings support working in groups and
utilizing technology, which are both typical for CS and especially
software development. This room is ideal for all active parts of the
workshops, because the students are able to talk with each other
about problems and encouraged to experiment with possible
solutions and realize them in groups.
During microteaching phases or students’ presentations we use
the teaching room. The tables and chairs are flexible, so we can
arrange them in rows of chairs, a circle of chairs or small group
tables for four students. One big advantage of changing the
location is that the students stop to work on their tasks and thus
listen to the tutors or their classmates. During a workshop the